Neighbor rescues Mount Hope woman from fire

MOUNT HOPE — A neighbor's quick thinking saved the life of a Mount Hope woman, who was overcome by smoke from a fire Wednesday night.

Gittel Evangelist

MOUNT HOPE — A neighbor's quick thinking saved the life of a Mount Hope woman, who was overcome by smoke from a fire Wednesday night.

Michael Collins, 26, said he was at home on Bull Road, eating dinner with his girlfriend and watching TV shortly after 8 p.m. The two heard the smoke alarm go off in an adjacent apartment, where Collins' neighbor, 51-year-old Joanne Roberts, lives alone.

There are four units in the multifamily home — a stone house with a gambrel roof, on the grounds of Wessels' Farm wholesale nursery.

Collins gave the following account of the fire:

After hearing the smoke alarm, Collins went to his neighbor's door.

"I asked if she was OK and she said, 'No.' My heart was beating out of my chest," Collins said.

He tried the handle: Locked. "I was getting ready to bust the door in, when it popped open. I think it took the last bit of energy she had to open that door."

Roberts was visibly weak. She fell backward and slumped into a chair.

Collins saw thick smoke and large flames coming from the bed in the next room. He yelled to his girlfriend to call 911.

He tried to smother the fire with blankets and douse it with water.

"It was like a big tinder bundle," Collins said.

"I said, 'I'm getting the hell out of here.' I threw her over my shoulder and brought her outside and put her in my pickup. Then I went back and got everyone out (of the other two apartments)."

Roberts somehow got out of the truck and was on the ground when Collins came back.

By this time, town police had arrived, so Collins carried Roberts to a police car. Cops arranged to meet up with an ambulance on Route 211.

Roberts was taken to Orange Regional Medical Center in the Town of Wallkill but was transferred to Lehigh Valley Hospital in Pennsylvania, where she was listed in critical condition on Thursday, state police said.

Meanwhile, firefighters arrived to find a downed power line blocking the stairs, and had to attack the blaze from outside, Mount Hope Assistant Fire Chief Wayne Melton said.

"Once the power line was taken care of, we went in and put out the fire, and looked for any other victims, four-legged or two," Melton said.